Chapter 21: If the Sun Never Sets: Chapter 21

One week later

“This is the perfect night.” Farrah nibbled on a chocolate square and sighed in bliss. Chocolate made everything better. “It’s so good to see you guys.”

“I’m so happy to be here.” Courtney Taylor squeezed Farrah’s arm, her blue eyes twinkling with delight. “Spokane is nice, but it bores the shit out of me.”

“Why don’t you move back to Seattle?” Farrah couldn’t imagine someone as larger-than-life and outgoing as Courtney living anywhere but a big city, but the brunette had moved two years ago to Spokane, Washington for a sales manager job at a small manufacturing company.

Courtney shrugged. A shadow of unease passed over her face. “I’m over Seattle.”

Before she could elaborate, Olivia traipsed over with Kris Carrera in tow. They both held freshly poured glasses of merlot and cabernet sauvignon, respectively. “We’re back! What’d we miss?”

“We were just catching up.” Farrah grinned when she saw Kris’s Prada sunglasses. The wealthy Filipina was the only person she knew who wore sunglasses at night—and indoors.

She supposed Kris had good reason to hide her face, given she was engaged to A-list Hollywood star Nate Reynolds, and the paparazzi constantly chased them down. Nate was in town filming his latest movie, and Kris had decided to accompany him and surprise Farrah and Olivia. She’d convinced Courtney to come along as well so they could have a mini FEA reunion.

The four girls had been thick as thieves when they studied abroad together in Shanghai. They weren’t as close anymore, since Farrah and Olivia lived in New York and Courtney and Kris lived on the West Coast, but whenever they saw each other, it was as if no time had passed at all.

Kris removed her sunglasses and scanned the cozy bar. “This place is okay.” No one bothered them, though a few people snuck surreptitious glances at Kris. That was the good thing about New York—locals left celebrities alone, and there was no place more local, or exclusive, than Elysian, a wine and chocolate bar tucked deep in the West Village. “Decent wine and atmosphere.”

Coming from Kris, that praise was akin to a Michelin star.

“Of course it is.” Olivia tossed her hair over her shoulder. She was the one who’d picked the spot. “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

“Never.” Courtney grinned, her earlier unease gone. “So, what are we doing after this? Clubbing? Bar crawl? Rave? Underground house party?”

Farrah winced. She’d loved partying with Courtney in Shanghai, and she was still down for a night on the town every now and then, but she’d reached a point in her life where she’d much rather curl up with Netflix and a pint of ice cream than get smushed by a pile of sweaty bodies in some pretentious club.

“Sorry, babe.” A sly smile spread across Kris’s face. “Nate’s shoot finishes soon, and I’m planning to reward him for a hard day’s work.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what kind of “reward” Kris had planned.

“And I have work due tomorrow morning.” Olivia yawned.

“But it’s Saturday tomorrow,” Courtney protested.

“The world of finance never rests.”

Courtney pouted. “Farrah?”

“Um.” As much as Farrah loved her friend, the thought of attending a wild party tonight was as appealing as a root canal without Novocain. She couldn’t think of a good excuse, so she went with the truth. “I’m not feeling up to it tonight. Sorry.”

“Boo.” Courtney’s shoulders slumped before she perked up again. “Isn’t Sammy in town? He’ll go with me.”

Olivia snorted, a sign of derisiveness that didn’t go unnoticed.

“Don’t tell me you guys still aren’t speaking to each other,” Kris said. “How can you stay mad at him? It’s Sammy!”

“So?”

“So, he’s the most likable guy on the planet.”

“You’re not the one who dated him,” Olivia grumbled. “You don’t know what he said to me.”

Farrah, Courtney, and Kris exchanged glances.

“Do you know?” Courtney mouthed at Farrah, who’d been in New York the same summer Olivia and Sammy broke up. The summer after FEA.

Farrah shook her head. She’d been distracted that summer by her internship and recent breakup with Blake, but from what she saw, things had been going swell between Sammy and Olivia until the tail end of August. Stony glares and cold rebuffs cut off Farrah’s attempts to find out what happened.

After a while, she’d stopped trying.

“Also, Sammy isn’t as perfect as you think it is. He won’t even tell Farrah the truth about Blake.” Olivia gulped her wine in a way wine was not meant to be gulped.

Farrah was so startled by the sight of Olivia breaking wine etiquette she didn’t notice Courtney’s and Kris’s gazes focusing on her until their heat pierced her skin.

“What’s the truth about Blake?” Courtney’s eyes grew to the size of silver dollars at the prospect of juicy gossip.

Farrah had told Kris and Courtney about Blake’s interior design project, but she hadn’t mentioned Sammy’s cryptic advice at brunch.

“I don’t know.” Farrah touched the pendant resting at the base of her throat. “Like Liv said, Sammy didn’t tell me.”

“He told her to ask Blake about her necklace the next time she saw him,” Olivia clarified. “Big help that is.”

Kris arched one sleek, well-groomed brow. “Did you? Ask Blake the next time you saw him?”

Not exactly.

Farrah thanked God for dim lighting and Asian glow—her cheeks were already flushed from chardonnay—because she couldn’t stop the blanket of heat creeping its way from the top of her head all the way to her toes. Every time she thought about what happened in Blake’s bathroom last week, her womb clenched, and wetness pooled between her thighs.

She’d never seen Blake like that. There were times he’d been rough in Shanghai, but the other night? He’d been an animal. Feral. Merciless.

And she’d loved every second.

Whether it was Blake or the pent-up frustration from a year without sex—or, most likely, a combination of both—Farrah had, oh, the top five orgasms of her life in one night.

It worked then. You fucked me out of your system.

“Farrah?” Kris prompted.

Did she get him out of her system? She wasn’t so sure.

Farrah thought one last fling with Blake would give her the closure she needed, but now her body craved him more than ever. It hungered for him to return, to fill her again, and when he wasn’t there, it turned its ire on her, torturing her with its insatiable neediness until she wanted to cry from frustration.

Her plan to fuck him out of her system, as Blake so succinctly put it, had hopelessly backfired.

But it wasn’t just her hormones. Farrah couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Blake’s face when she left. He tried to hide it, but she saw it clear as day: utter heartbreak. And even though he was the one who’d wronged her first, the sight wrenched her gut in a way it had no right doing.

“Farrah!” Kris’s voice shattered Farrah’s inner turmoil and caused her to jump.

As a result, Farrah knocked the half-empty glass closest to her off the table with her elbow. She watched in horror as the glass tumbled toward the ground in slow motion, ready to splinter into a million pieces, before Courtney’s arm shot out and caught it at the last moment.

“All good.” She placed the now quarter-empty glass on the table. “Just a small spill.”

“Sorry.” The heat on Farrah’s cheeks intensified. She grabbed her napkin and was about to clean up her mess when their server swooped in.

“I’ll take care of it,” she assured the table.

“Sorry,” Farrah repeated.

“You never answered my question.” Kris’s mouth twitched, as if she were trying not to laugh.

“What was it again?”

“Did you ask Blake about your necklace?”

“Um, no.”

She didn’t ask him the other night because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer, but now, sitting here with her friends from Shanghai, the curiosity ate at her.

Would it be so bad to find out the truth? Maybe it wasn’t a big deal, and she was just hyping it up in her mind.

Farrah did a quick mental calculation. They were in the West Village, and Blake’s apartment was a ten-minute walk away.

She’d finished the design project a few days ago. Blake had said (via text) he didn’t need a final walkthrough, and she hadn’t pushed him for one. He should’ve moved back into the apartment by now.

Technically, she told him one night of sex. She didn’t say that was the last night they had to see each other. Besides, she had a valid question to ask him.

“Oh, no,” Olivia said. “I know that look. Your contract with Blake is done. Finito. You don’t need to get involved with him anymore. Forget about the necklace. Sammy was probably making shit up.”

“Sammy doesn’t make stuff up. And you were the one who brought up the necklace,” Farrah pointed out.

“Potato, potahtoe. My point is, leave Blake alone.”

“Too late,” Farrah mumbled.

“What?” Olivia frowned, then gasped. “No. You didn’t.”

That was the thing about best friends/roommates, especially one as detail-oriented as Olivia—they could read you like a large-print book.

“What’s going on?” Courtney tilted her head. Her mass of thick brown curls cascaded past her shoulder and over her arm.

“Judging by Farrah’s blush and Olivia’s glare, our girl has boned Blake Ryan recently.” Kris yawned and examined her flawless manicure.

“Wow.” Courtney mulled the revelation over. “This is like FEA 2.0.”

“No, it’s not.” The color of Farrah’s cheeks matched her friend’s merlot. “We had sex once. It’s not like I’m in love with him.”

Olivia and Courtney gasped at the admission; Kris sipped her wine with a smirk.

“I don’t blame you. I saw him in Forbes.” Kris yawned again. “He’s still looking mighty fine.”

“Excuse me, but have we forgotten what he did to her in Shanghai?” Olivia huffed.

The Filipina waved off the concern with a dismissive hand. Her Wollman-rink-sized engagement ring glittered in the dim lighting. “That was years ago.”

“Love has made you soft,” Courtney teased. “There was a time when you would’ve been first in line to pin Blake’s balls to the wall.”

Kris shrugged, not bothering to deny it.

It had come as a shock to all of them when Kris announced her engagement to Nate. She was the last person they’d expected to marry first. Kris—who’d deemed the male species uninteresting, unprincipled, and unworthy of her time—hadn’t dated or hooked up with anyone during their year in Shanghai.

Then again, Farrah would break her rules for Nate Reynolds too. The action star looked like a taller, better-looking hybrid of Liam Hemsworth and Theo James, and from what she could tell, he treated Kris like a queen. Which was good, because Kris considered herself a queen, and not in the modern empowerment kind of way. More like a Harry-Winston-crown-wearing, everyone-bow-before-me kind of way.

Besides, Kris and Nate met the summer Kris returned from China. Five years of dating and jet-setting around the world together. They were already practically married, and their upcoming nuptials were just a formality.

“So.” Courtney’s blue eyes glittered with mischief. “How’s Blake in bed? Has he learned any new tricks?”

Australia-sized red blotches blossomed on Farrah’s face and chest. That was her cue.

“As much as I would love to discuss my sex life, I’m afraid I have to cut the night short. There’s have something I have to do,” she announced. “You guys will be in town until next weekend, right?”

“Yes,” Kris said at the same time Courtney asked, “Something or someone?”

“We’ll hang out during the week.” Farrah ignored Courtney’s question and Olivia’s disapproving stare. “Liv, see you at home later. Try not to blow a gasket before then.”

“That’s going to be tough considering my best friend insists on tangoing with the devil.” Olivia’s brows knotted together. “Be careful, okay?”

“I will.” Farrah slung her purse over her shoulder. “Love you guys. Venmo me the bill.”

“She’s totally going to bang Blake,” she heard Courtney say as she left. “Speaking of bang-worthy guys, we should invite Sammy out. I miss him.”

Olivia hissed. “Over my dead body.”

“Hey, whatever you’re into…”

Farrah’s friends’ voices faded. The door to Elysian jangled closed behind her as she poured herself into the sticky summer heat of late June New York. By the time she arrived at Blake’s building, a thin sheen of sweat coated her skin, and her orange sundress clung to her chest and thighs.

The concierge recognized her on sight and waved her up without calling Blake, even though it was well past business hours.

Farrah was grateful for the extra time to change her mind, though it didn’t say much about building security.

You’re already here. Might as well go through with it.

She got off the elevator, heart pounding, and knocked on Blake’s door before she lost her nerve.

Silence.

Maybe he wasn’t here. It was, after all, Friday night.

Relief and disappointment fizzled in Farrah’s veins. This was stupid. She should—

She heard low voices, then footsteps. A second later, Blake opened the door, his eyes brightening with surprise when he saw who was on the other side. His hair was damp, and he wore a soft gray T-shirt that molded to his sculpted shoulders and well-defined arms.

“Farrah? What are you doing here?”

Farrah’s response died in her throat when another set of footsteps approached and a willowy, auburn-haired beauty appeared by Blake’s side. She wore an oversized black Southeastern Texas sweatshirt.

Blake’s sweatshirt.

One of his favorites, if Farrah remembered correctly.

“Who’s this?” The woman cocked her head and eyed Farrah curiously. With her high cheekbones, creamy skin, and golden-brown eyes, she should be on a Times Square billboard, showing off the latest designer fragrance or expensive lingerie line.

Say something.

Except, she couldn’t. All Farrah could do was stand there and try not to drown beneath the wave of jealousy that consumed her.